choke
by buckley's angel
Summary: Three times Birthday doesn't succumb, one time he does. Slight reshidei.


**a/n: spoilers for episode nine of Re:Hamatora**

* * *

(1)

Ratio has just finished with his last patient of the day. He's at the vending machine, getting a cola when his pocket buzzes. He slips out his phone, sees it's Chiyuu, and picks up.

"Eggshell," she exclaims in a panic before he can even get a greeting out. "Yellow-green, charcoal!"

Ratio's heart stops, blood instantly ice cold. _  
_

"Where are you!?"

"Magenta!"

"I'll be right there." He's already racing out of the building, fishing out his keys, his teeth gritting. _Hang on, Birthday._

He blows stop signs, breaks speed limits, the world blurring past into a nondescript white noise as dread snowballs in his chest.

Peeling into the nightclub parking lot, Ratio spots them immediately. They're on a bench. Birthday is hunched forward and Chiyuu has her hand on his back. Ratio sprints right over.

"Eggshell," Chiyuu says apprehensively, teeth buried in her lip.

"She's exaggerating," Birthday insists in a wheeze. "I'm alright."

"You're breathless." Ratio narrows his eyes. Birthday's chest struggles to the pace of a hummingbird's wings, his inhales shallow and his exhales rough.

"Just a little." Birthday smirks, eyes flashing behind his sunglasses.

"I'm taking you to the hospital." Ratio's apprehension is crawling, gelid; he's feared this day for years, but he isn't going to lose his cool.

"Aww, Ratio-chan. You're so dramatic. I'd rather go home."

"No, you—"

"I'll be fine," Birthday cuts him off. "I promise. Just take me home, okay?"

"Pearl," sighs Chiyuu.

Despite his better judgement, Ratio has never been good at denying Birthday anything.

He gives in and takes Birthday home, deciding that the second his symptoms worsen – all it'll take is one cough – he'll drag him straight to urgent care. He watches him like a hawk for the rest of the night, sitting on pins and waiting for the other shoe to drop with knots stretching the span of his rib cage.

It doesn't.

"See?" Birthday chirps in the morning and his grin is sunshine. "You worry too much."

(2)

Birthday is a lot of things and quiet isn't one of them.

But he's been quiet all day, subdued with his head in his arms on Cafe Nowhere's counter. Ratio is sure something's wrong, but he doesn't think it's the kind of something to be concerned about. He's sure he's sulking about being rejected by some girl, or because Hajime ate the dessert he'd left in the fridge, or something else just as trivial.

He doesn't consider otherwise until Birthday breaks into a harsh coughing fit, disrupting the peaceful afternoon. Koneko almost drops her glass. "Are you okay?"

Ratio abruptly lurches out of his chair and scrambles to Birthday's side. Coughs mercilessly rack his frame, brittle and dry as autumn leaves.

Ratio's stomach twists in trepidation, his own breath catching. "Birthday!"

Birthday groans as he finally manages to shake the fit and when he lowers his hands from his mouth, Ratio takes minute comfort in that his palms aren't covered in blood.

But they are misted with snot. Birthday is flushed red, nose dribbling down his chin. Koneko passes him a dishtowel and he briskly swipes the strings of mucus away.

"I think you've caught Theo's flu," she tells him gently.

Birthday mumbles something and coughs again into the towel. Ratio's shoulders slacken.

The flu.

He can handle the flu.

"You should have said something," Ratio scolds, though he finds it hard to be frustrated when relief is submerging him.

Birthday blows his nose and shrugs. He seems pretty out of it, so Ratio helps him to his feet and says goodbye for both of them. Ratio takes Birthday home, puts him to bed, retrieves another blanket from the closet because he's starting to quake with the chills.

"Drink," he orders as he closes fingers much too warm around the bottle of a sports drink. "You need fluids."

Birthday swigs and gives him a hazy, lopsided smile. "Thank you, Doc-chan."

Ratio hums and takes the bottle from him, gingerly pushing him back to the mattress. "Now rest."

And he kisses Birthday's steaming forehead before he smooths the cold compress to it.

(3)

As a doctor, Ratio knows just how unhealthy gorging on a big bucket of double-battered, deep fried chicken is. Frankly, unhealthy or not, it doesn't appeal to him at all.

But that's what Birthday wants for dinner, so that's what he gets via drive-through-window.

The blonde makes an unattractive noise of delight and hugs the bucket to his chest. "It smells sooo good~"

He snickers and then pops the lid, lips smacking as he fishes out a massive, greasy leg.

"Make sure you're done by the time we reach the client's house," Ratio tells him. Tonight's assignment is to find out who's stealing exotic fish from the aquarium and why, which is rather mundane, but the pay is worth it.

"Whatever I don't finish, I'll store in your glove box."

Ratio doesn't doubt this.

He cracks open the window to bring some fresh air into the car, because the last thing he wants is the aroma of fried chicken lingering, and continues along the highway.

There is no indication that tonight's going to be anything but usual (well, their kind of usual) until the ravenous chomping sounds of Birthday eating turn to the abrupt, sharp sounds of him coughing.

He's driving in a busy lane, he can't really look, but he spares a glance. "Birthday? Hey, Birthday!"

Birthday's still hacking, hand over his mouth. Ratio's heart jolts when he realizes there is a rivulet of liquid crimson leaking between Birthday's index and middle finger, bold and conspicuous.

Ratio pulls over, tires squealing frantically and other cars furiously honking. He turns to Birthday, stomach turbulent with unease and the spark of an old battle, but when the blonde lowers his hand, there is a dissonant grin on his face.

"Relax, Ratio-chan. I just choked on a sharp bone." He holds it up for evidence.

Ratio isn't sure whether he feels like smacking him or hugging him.

(4)

Ratio feels like he jinxed him. As soon as he declared it wasn't a bad day, Birthday sank to the pavement.

His blood is at Ratio's feet and he's hacking up more of it, splashes in the growing puddle even louder than his uneven, jarred breathing.

Shuddering, Birthday clutches at his chest. The leg he was bracing himself on gives out. He trembles even harder on his knees, pallid and perspiration-beaded under the glow of passing headlights and looking mere heartbeats from fully collapsing.

Ratio hugs him charily, able to feel the cold of his skin and weight of his shakes even through the fabric of their clothes.

This is it, the undeniable relapse that'd been lurking in the shadows for years.

"I won't give up," he promises and holds him just a little tighter.

Birthday covers his mouth as his lungs clench and more blood comes up in abundance. His strained panting is louder than ever, coarse and thick and scarily wet.

"Ratio," he starts and Ratio wants to tell him not to talk because he can barely even breathe, he should use his strength to keep doing that. "You...You'd probably...be okay on your own now...right?"

"No," Ratio tells him tautly.

"Ratio..." A brutal spate of coughs tears itself from Birthday's throat and ends in another sickening splash, but that doesn't terrify Ratio as much as the finality in Birthday's voice. Because acceptance to this is just so, _so_ completely un-Birthday.

"The last thing I'll be on my own is okay."

Birthday wheezes a laugh. "Guess I can't die yet then..."

"No," Ratio agrees firmly. "You can't."


End file.
